Robert B Parker - Stone 4 - Stone Cold

by Stone Cold(lit)

  Jesse nodded.

  "Well, I can't," Christine said.

  "'Course not," Jesse said.

  "Hell, he was never my dog. Kenny just bought him because he thought they'd look good running on the beach together."

  "They do that often?"

  "Five nights a week," she said. "Kenny was always obsessing about his weight."

  "Regular?"

  "Kenny? Oh, God, yes, he was a schedule freak. Same time for everything. Always." Suddenly she smiled a thin smile. "I mean everything."

  "Good to know," Jesse said. "Do you have any idea who would want him dead?"

  "Oh," she said, "God no."

  "Does he pay you alimony?"

  "No. I got my house in lieu of alimony. Hell, I make more than he does anyway."

  "Where were you last Thursday night?" Jesse said.

  "Me?"

  "Have to ask," Jesse said.

  She glanced at her date book, then looked up and met his gaze for a moment. He could see her thinking.

  She said, "I was in bed with Neil Ames."

  "All night?"

  "We were together from five-thirty in the afternoon until nine A.M. the next morning."

  "I'll need to verify it," Jesse said. "Where do I find Mr. Ames?"

  "Two doors down," she said. "He's the marketing director."

  "Does he think the Super Bowl matters?" Jesse said.

  "No."

  "What does he think matters?"

  "Money."

  "No fool, he," Jesse said. "Can you tell me anything at all that might shed light on Kenneth Eisley's death?"

  "Have you tried at work?" she said. "Maybe he lost somebody's life savings."

  "As we speak," Jesse said. "Any other thoughts?"

  "No."

  Jesse took a card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Christine.

  "Anything occurs," he said, "call me."

  "Even if it's not about the case?"

  "Sure," Jesse said. "Maybe we can schedule something."

  Again the tight smile. Jesse smiled back. Then he went down the hall to talk with the marketing director.

  13

  Jesse stood in the living room of Ken Eisley's condominium, listening to the silence. Jesse liked to go alone to places where victims lived, and visit for a while. Rarely did the silence whisper to him anything worth hearing, but that didn't mean it wouldn't, and being there helped him think. The condo was a mirror image of the one where Angie Aarons lived. On the living room floor, near the gas fireplace, was a big plaid dog cushion. On the low oak coffee table was a bottle of single malt scotch and two short thick glasses. Above the fireplace was a four-inch-thin wall-mounted television set that Jesse knew cost about $7,000. On an end table was a baseball enclosed in a plastic case. The ball had been signed almost illegibly by Willie Mays. To the right of the fireplace was a small maroon and gold replica model of an Indian motorcycle. In the kitchen was a set of stainless steel dog dishes in a black metal rack. There was a king-sized walnut sleigh bed and a large-screen television in the bedroom. On the bedside table were two copies of a magazine about men's health and exercise. In the bathroom was a wooden container of shaving soap, a brush, and a double-edged razor. The razor and the shaving brush each had an ivory handle. A bottle of bay rum stood on the shaving ledge beside them. Everything was obviously new.

  The fact that the marketing director had alibied Christine Erickson didn't prove much, Jesse thought. There were probably two people involved in the shooting. And each could be the other's alibi. But why? Jesse could find no reason for either of them to kill Eisley. According to Peter Perkins, Eisley was medium successful. He hadn't made anyone rich, including himself. But he hadn't put anyone in debtors' prison, either. He'd stayed about even with a down market. Maybe he should go in and talk to people himself. Perkins was pretty good, but, like most of the department, he didn't have much experience with homicide investigations.

  In the den Jesse found another television and a big sound system. There was a gumball machine, a model of the original Thunderbird, a big illuminated globe, and some sort of glass slab filled with water through which bubbles rose endlessly. The world according to Sharper Image.

  There were no photographs. There were no books. Jesse went to Eisley's front porch and checked the mailbox. There was a J. Crew catalogue. Peter Perkins had the checkbook, bills, credit card receipts kind of evidence. He was perfectly competent to evaluate it. What interested Jesse was the emptiness. Except for the dog cushion. There was no hint that anyone lived there and enjoyed it. It was monastically neat. If their timeline was right, Eisley had come home from work, put on his sweats, and gone out for a run with the dog. But there were no clothes draped on a chair or across his bed. Whatever he had worn he had carefully hung up, or put in the laundry bag. His shoes were lined up on the shoe rack in his bedroom closet. The refrigerator was nearly empty. The CD player seemed ornamental. Jesse smiled in the dead silent house.

  Not even a picture of Ozzie Smith...

  Jesse moved slowly from room to room again. He didn't open any drawers or closets. He didn't pick up any artifacts, he simply moved slowly through the house. He saw nothing, smelled nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing that would even hint at why someone had wanted to put two bullets into Kenneth Eisley's chest. The kitchen wall beside the back door had a doggie door cut into it, that led to a fenced run in the backyard.

  Maybe I should get a dog.

  Jesse had no yard. What would the dog do all day? He sat for a few more moments, then stood and left the empty condo, and locked the door behind him.

  14

  When Jesse came back to the station Molly was at the front desk, talking on the phone. She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger, holding the other three fingers straight.

  "Does that translate to 'I've ID'd the three boys'?" Jesse said.

  Molly nodded.

  "When you get a break on the desk," Jesse said, "come see me."

  Then he went on into the office and closed the door and called Marcy Campbell.

  "You free tonight?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Can you come over to my place?"

  "I'd be foolish not to," Marcy said.

  "We can order in," Jesse said.

  "Chinese?" Marcy said. "You know how erotic I get when I eat Chinese."

  "Or when you don't," Jesse said.

  Molly knocked and came into the office and lingered politely by the door until Jesse hung up. Then she sat in the chair across from him, adjusted her handgun so it didn't dig into her lower back, and looked down at her notebook.

  "Bo Marino, Kevin Feeney, Troy Drake," she said.

  "The three boys you saw hassle Candace."

  "Yes."

  "Got anything more?"

  "Not yet."

  "You got a plan?" Jesse said.

  "I'm going to haunt them," Molly said.

  "You do have to work here sometimes," Jesse said.

  "My time," Molly said.

  "Company time too," Jesse said, "when we can spare you. It is company business."

  "It's woman's business, too," Molly said.

  "I understand that."

  "I'm not sure you do," Molly said. "I'm not sure any man does."

  "I don't like rape much either," Jesse said.

  "No. I'm sure you don't. But you haven't lived with it since before you even knew what it was."

  "Because it's the worst thing that can happen?"

  "No," Molly said. "There are several things worse. It's one reason women submit to it, it's better than the alternative."

  "Like death," Jesse said.

  "Or torture or both. But rape is the thing your mother was scared of. It's the possibility that you have not only known but felt, since little boys peeked up your dress."

  "You knew we did that?" Jesse said.

  "Any woman has always known she is the object of sexual interest from almost any man, and that almost any man, if he chooses, can force himsel
f sexually upon her."

  "You ever been raped?" Jesse said.

  "No. But almost any woman has had more sexual attention from some man than she wanted. We all know about duress."

  "Not all of us are, ah, duressful," Jesse said.

  "No. But you know what they say - you have to judge what the enemy can do, not what he might do."

  "Are we all the enemy?"

  "Oh, God, no," Molly said. "I love you, Jesse... And my husband..." She paused. "He's my best friend, my lover, my..." She shook her head. "But there are things women know that men may never know."

  "Which is why you're all over this rape case like ugly on a toad."

  "Yes."

  "Men may know things women don't," Jesse said.

  "I'm sure that is so. But rape is one of the things we know," Molly said.

  Jesse nodded. "Control might become sort of an issue for some women," Jesse said.

  "If they are with a controlling man," Molly said.

  "You do a lot of thinking," Jesse said. "For an Irish Catholic cop."

  "An Irish Catholic married female mother of three kids small-town cop," Molly said.

  "Exactly," Jesse said.

  "So," Molly said, "I'm going to haunt them."

  "Just do everything right," Jesse said, "so if they did do it, we don't lose them."

  "I know."

  "And don't forget that these may be high school kids but they are bigger and stronger than you are."

  "It's a thing women never, ever forget," Molly said.

  "Duh," Jesse said. "I guess that's pretty much what you've been telling me."

  "Pretty much," Molly said, and smiled at him. "Don't get nervous, though. I won't keep telling you."

  15

  The woman's body lay on its side, at the far end of the parking lot in the Paradise Mall. Her head was jammed against the rear tire of a silver Volvo Cross Country wagon. A shopping cart full of groceries stood nose-in against the black Audi sedan next to the Volvo. Jesse sat on his heels beside Peter Perkins and looked at her.

  "Two in the chest," Perkins said. "Look like small-caliber to me."

  "Just like Kenneth Eisley," Jesse said.

  "At first look," Perkins said.

  "Keys were in her hand," Jesse said. "And she dropped them when she was shot."

  "She probably popped the rear gate with the remote on her key chain," Perkins said. "Rear gate is unlatched but not open."

  Jesse looked at the unemptied shopping cart. Behind them several people, attracted by the blue lights on the patrol cars, stood in silence, held away from the crime scene by Simpson and deAngelo. In the distance a siren sounded.

  "That'll be the EMTs," Perkins said.

  "She doesn't need them anymore."

  "No," Perkins said. "But they can haul her away."

  Jesse nodded.

  "So," he said. "She food shops in the market. And checks out and wheels her cart out here... This her car?"

  "I assume so."

  "Try her keys," Jesse said.

  Wearing gloves, Perkins picked up the key chain and pointed the remote at the Volvo and clicked the power lock. The lights flashed and the door locks clicked. He unlocked the doors the same way, then dropped the keys into an evidence bag and made a notation on the label.

  "Okay, so she comes out here to her car..." He looked around the parking lot. "Which is way out here because the lot is full."

  "Friday night," Perkins said.

  "It's always like this on a Friday night?"

  "Yeah. Worse before a holiday."

  "She pops her rear door," Jesse said, "to put her stuff away, and gets two in the chest. She maybe lived five more seconds and turned half away before she died, and fell, and her head jammed up that way against the rear tire."

  Perkins nodded.

  "That's how I'd read it," he said.

  The mercury floods in the parking lot gave everything a faint bluish tinge. In other parts of the lot cars were looking for spots and waiting for people to load their groceries and pull out so that they could pull in. If they saw the blue lights they didn't react, and having places to go, went.

  The Paradise emergency response wagon rolled in to a stop and Duke Vincent got out. He knelt beside the woman and felt for a pulse. He knew, as they all knew, that he wouldn't find one. But it was routine. It would be embarrassing to take a living body to the morgue.

  "Can we move her yet?" he said to Jesse.

  Jesse looked at Perkins. "You all set?" he said.

  "Yeah, I've chalked the outline."

  "Okay, Dukie," Jesse said.

  "She got a name?" Duke said as they loaded her into the back of the wagon.

  "Driver's license says Barbara Carey."

  Vincent nodded. "You noticed she got shot just like the guy on the beach," he said.

  "I noticed," Jesse said.

  "Just thought I'd mention it," Duke said, and got in the wagon and drove away.

  The people gathered to watch began to drift away. Suitcase Simpson came over to stand with Jesse and Peter Perkins.

  "Whaddya think," he said.

  He spoke to both of them, but he looked at Jesse.

  "Well, there was money still in her purse," Perkins said. "She was still wearing her rings and necklace."

  "Unless it was a random shooting," Jesse said, "the killer, or killers, had to follow her here. Even if they knew she was coming here to shop, they'd have no way to know where she'd park."

  "Which means they drove," Simpson said.

  Jesse nodded.

  "And if they drove, they'd park near where she parked and sit in the car and wait for her to come out," Jesse said. "Peter, you and Suit and Anthony get the license numbers of any cars that could see her car from where they were parked."

  "You think the killer could still be here?" Simpson said.

  "Don't know," Jesse said. "Let's see."

  He jabbed his forefinger toward the parked cars.

  "You bet," Perkins said.

  Jesse went to his car and called Molly on the radio.

  "Got a woman shot to death at the mall," he said. "Driver's license says she's Barbara Carey, Sixteen Rose Ave. See if she's got a next of kin."

  "If there is, do I notify?" Molly said.

  "I'll do that," Jesse said.

  "No," Molly said. "I can do it."

  "Okay," Jesse said. "Let me know."

  Among the few people still watching, a husband and wife held hands and whispered together.

  "Who's that talking on the radio?" she said.

  "Chief of police, I think."

  "He's cute," she said.

  "I didn't notice," he said.

  "What are the other cops doing," she said.

  "Taking down license plates."

  "My God," she said. "They'll find our names."

  "So," he said. "They'll find a hundred other names too."

  "Do you think they'll question us?"

  "It's a small-town force," he said. "I doubt they've got the manpower."

  "Be kind of exciting if they did," she said.

  "Yes."

  "What would we say."

  "We'd say we came here to pick up some groceries," he said. "Which we did."

  "I thought I might have an orgasm right there," she said, "standing beside her putting grapes in a bag."

  He smiled and squeezed her hand.

  "Up close and personal," he said softly.

  16

  "For Christ's sake," Marcy said. "You can't have someone to dinner and just plonk three cartons of Chinese food on the table."

  "Of course you can't," Jesse said. "I just wanted to see if you knew that."

  "Yeah, right," Marcy said.

  She was looking through his kitchen cabinets.

  "You can make us a cocktail," she said. "While I set the table."

  Without asking, Jesse made each of them a tall scotch and soda.